Happy Memorial Day

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 12 inch canvas 

I decided to use my Fineline applicator to sketch some purple coneflowers with black high flow acrylic. Then I developed the painting with glazes of fluid acrylics. The coneflowers should be blooming in my front yard in another month.

I hope my friends in the US have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend.

Revisiting old paintings

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 12 x 16 inch canvas panel 

Sometimes I like to re-visit some of my old paintings and rework them. Sometimes I want to make improvements by applying techniques I have learned since the original painting was done. And sometimes I decide to completely obliterate an old one and do something entirely different. Quite often I decide to do reworks when I'm in a creative lull, so why not just play with an old canvas.

This painting was one I painted when I was learning about negative painting and practicing some techniques from a book written by Linda Kemp. This is what it looked like before I made a few changes last night:

Original painting 

I liked the dark and moody tone of the original but I just decided to brighten it up. It's just a cheap canvas panel, so why not play around with it. It's just paint after all.

My New Easel!

Earlier this month Artistsnetwork.com held daily drawings for various products from the Jack Richeson company and I won this beautiful easel. It's the BEST Deluxe Lobo. It can be adjusted to various heights. The tilt can be adjusted forward for pastel, backwards for painting oil and acrylic, and it even can be adjusted to a horizontal position for watercolor or other activities that require a flat surface. I love it!

Here's a closeup of today's painting, an experiment on Golden crackle paste:

I let the colors get too intense for my tastes. I still need to seal it. Maybe a faux encaustic finish will rein in the color intensity.